Thankfully that isn't happening as the vulnerable cohort are vaccinated. Dealing with 18 month backlog of people requiring hospital care with reduced staffing due stress sickness and staff leaving is now the problem facing the NHS
Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
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elbows
Well-Known Member
In this wave in the North East, the number of covid patients in mechanical ventilation beds reached 63% of the level seen in that region last autumn, and 46.8% of the levels seen at the peak of their winter wave.
The press have done a terrible job at reporting this wave in those sort of terms. And only today I caught the Guardians live updates page going on about how many hospitalised people are there for other reasons. But they totally ignore the data the NHS actually published about this, and instead go with a lot of useless shit that the likes of the Telegraph came out with before that data was published, about how half of people didnt test positive until after they were admitted. ( 1h ago 14:55 )
It depends which ward/department you work in, to quite a large degree. My mate who is a nurse in A&E has been very affected (and indeed did catch covid from a patient). Other nurses in some other wards/departments somewhat less so.
Yea very dependent on the area. I'm triaging onc, thorasic, ent and haem it's a nightmare. Sone areas it's not been so heavy
To be blunt religiosity is a problem with older people and I'd guess they are Bangladeshi and Pakistanis
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Overcrowded housing and poverty probably rather more important than their religion.
No some people just believe in God strongly
Numbers
an ting!
My sister in law refuses to have the jab, she believes her prayers will keep her safe.
cupid_stunt
Merry fecking Christmas.
Yossarian
Get thee behind me, Santa
"If only God would make it so there was some way we could protect ourselves from this terrible virus."
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Yes, lots do. But Islam has no problem with modern medicine and even claims to have invented half of it. So there is no simply religious reason why they should be over represented in figures.
elbows
Well-Known Member
We are used to various dubious contrarians or a few loud experts who should know better adopting stupid attitudes in this pandemic. But I think we are now into a period where we will glimpse more thoughts like that from those with more respectable pandemic track records, from more professional quarters.
For example today I had cause to post this article in one of the vaccine threads, but there is other stuff in the article I should probably draw attention to and attempt to explain.
I have not looked into the record of Pollard. Assuming they are not the sort of arsehole I would have shouted about all the way through this pandemic, my initial thoughts are along the lines of:
This is an example of how traditional, orthodox views on how we manage disease combine with the return to relative normalcy agenda, and in this case Pollard also has another agenda which is to discourage the use of boosters and promote the supply of vaccines for vulnerable people in other countries.
Other themes that are probably involved are that even if you dont think herd immunity thresholds can be achieved, there are still reasons why some disciplines are trained to want to see conditions where the immunity picture is relatively stable, and part of that thinking may involve letting plenty of people catch the disease, as a different way to boost immunity without using further vaccine doses.
Quite how crazy I would go about the idea of moving away from community testing depends in part on when exactly they would envisage such a transition. It would be a very unhelpful move in terms of surveillance of new variants. And it would be done in order to encourage a new attitude towards catching this virus that I simply cannot support at this stage of the pandemic. Even though I am a fan of us doing more routine testing for all manner of diseases, I will try to be flexible in my attitude towards this should a time arrive where circumstances have changed sufficiently that I dont think we need to control levels of infection in quite the same way any more. I doubt such circumstances will arise until after this coming autumn & winter, but I suppose I ould be pleasantly surprised on that.
Oh here is some other reporting of what was said in case it adds useful detail for anyone trying to make sense of this stuff: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ant-renders-herd-immunity-from-covid-mythical
For example today I had cause to post this article in one of the vaccine threads, but there is other stuff in the article I should probably draw attention to and attempt to explain.
Oxford-jab chief criticises UK's Covid booster plan
Health Secretary Sajid Javid says he plans to begin the third jab rollout in a matter of weeks.
www.bbc.co.uk
I have not looked into the record of Pollard. Assuming they are not the sort of arsehole I would have shouted about all the way through this pandemic, my initial thoughts are along the lines of:
This is an example of how traditional, orthodox views on how we manage disease combine with the return to relative normalcy agenda, and in this case Pollard also has another agenda which is to discourage the use of boosters and promote the supply of vaccines for vulnerable people in other countries.
Other themes that are probably involved are that even if you dont think herd immunity thresholds can be achieved, there are still reasons why some disciplines are trained to want to see conditions where the immunity picture is relatively stable, and part of that thinking may involve letting plenty of people catch the disease, as a different way to boost immunity without using further vaccine doses.
Quite how crazy I would go about the idea of moving away from community testing depends in part on when exactly they would envisage such a transition. It would be a very unhelpful move in terms of surveillance of new variants. And it would be done in order to encourage a new attitude towards catching this virus that I simply cannot support at this stage of the pandemic. Even though I am a fan of us doing more routine testing for all manner of diseases, I will try to be flexible in my attitude towards this should a time arrive where circumstances have changed sufficiently that I dont think we need to control levels of infection in quite the same way any more. I doubt such circumstances will arise until after this coming autumn & winter, but I suppose I ould be pleasantly surprised on that.
Oh here is some other reporting of what was said in case it adds useful detail for anyone trying to make sense of this stuff: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ant-renders-herd-immunity-from-covid-mythical
Last edited:
Storm Fox
Trying the find the next noun to verb
elbows
Well-Known Member
I forgot to say in previous post that I would like people to draw attention here to any stuff that like that appears in the press in the coming weeks and months. I'm only reading a fraction of the news stories that are out there, so I dont know what I am missing, and I certainly didnt have time to watch the committee meeting where those comments were made.
Depending on who you believe, herd immunity thresholds seem like a red herring - recent reporting blame Delta for this but others say that herd immunity doesnt work for any human coronavirus and that this one is no exception. So I started looking around for what the next step down from herd immunity is, and I have found the phrase 'endemic equilibrium'. I havent looked into this to see what the details are and whether this is a fully accepted concept, but I'm shucking the term out there now in case others want to look into that.
Depending on who you believe, herd immunity thresholds seem like a red herring - recent reporting blame Delta for this but others say that herd immunity doesnt work for any human coronavirus and that this one is no exception. So I started looking around for what the next step down from herd immunity is, and I have found the phrase 'endemic equilibrium'. I havent looked into this to see what the details are and whether this is a fully accepted concept, but I'm shucking the term out there now in case others want to look into that.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Yeah it seems like the number of daily admissions/diagnoses is oscillating right around the level which results in the number of people in hospital remains roughly stuck at a particular point. This situation might change even if number of hospital admissions doesnt change, depending on how quickly patients are discharged or die, or other phenomenon such as patients dropping off the official figures if its been too many days since they last tested positive. Plus number of admissions includes people who catch it in hospital, so if there is a change to the hospital outbreak picture then this will affect all the other numbers.
Looking at cases by age or by region may reval a somewhat different picture though. I'll take another look at those aspects once todays figures are published.
I think number of people in mechanical ventilation beds has also been creeping upwards very slightly recently.
Looking at cases by age or by region may reval a somewhat different picture though. I'll take another look at those aspects once todays figures are published.
I think number of people in mechanical ventilation beds has also been creeping upwards very slightly recently.
elbows
Well-Known Member
And I'm afraid that picture I just described is pretty consistent with whats happened with number of positive people, and their age groups, that have been detected in recent weeks. There just hasnt been a straightforward, sustained fall in positive cases detected, and so we dont see a sustained fall in hospitalisations either.
_Russ_
Never not Knowingly Misunderstood
The Torygraph:
"A panel of experts including the head of the Oxford vaccine team has said, as they called for an end to mass testing so that Britain can start to live with the virus. They said it was time to accept that there is no way of stopping the virus spreading through the entire population, and monitoring people with mild symptoms was no longer helpful. Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, who led the Oxford vaccine team, said it was clear that the delta variant can still infect people who have been vaccinated, which made herd immunity impossible to reach, even with the UK’s high uptake. The Department of Health confirmed that more than three quarters of adults have received both jabs, and calculated that 60,000 deaths and 66,900 hospitalisations have been prevented by the vaccines. However, experts said it would never be enough to stop the virus spreading. Speaking to the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, Sir Andrew said: “Anyone who is still unvaccinated will, at some point, meet the virus."
“We don’t have anything that will stop transmission, so I think we are in a situation where herd immunity is not a possibility, and I suspect the virus will throw up a new variant that is even better at infecting vaccinated individuals.”
"A panel of experts including the head of the Oxford vaccine team has said, as they called for an end to mass testing so that Britain can start to live with the virus. They said it was time to accept that there is no way of stopping the virus spreading through the entire population, and monitoring people with mild symptoms was no longer helpful. Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, who led the Oxford vaccine team, said it was clear that the delta variant can still infect people who have been vaccinated, which made herd immunity impossible to reach, even with the UK’s high uptake. The Department of Health confirmed that more than three quarters of adults have received both jabs, and calculated that 60,000 deaths and 66,900 hospitalisations have been prevented by the vaccines. However, experts said it would never be enough to stop the virus spreading. Speaking to the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, Sir Andrew said: “Anyone who is still unvaccinated will, at some point, meet the virus."
“We don’t have anything that will stop transmission, so I think we are in a situation where herd immunity is not a possibility, and I suspect the virus will throw up a new variant that is even better at infecting vaccinated individuals.”
elbows
Well-Known Member
And ultimately I expect that agenda to win, its mostly a question of timing and what setbacks there will be along the way.
Its not sensible to contemplate such a move right now. They must at least wait to see what the impact of relaxation of self-isolation rules, schools going back, football season starting, autumn etc is before considering the first move along that path. Not that I will be surprised if they start making these changes well before I think it sensible to do so.
Its not sensible to contemplate such a move right now. They must at least wait to see what the impact of relaxation of self-isolation rules, schools going back, football season starting, autumn etc is before considering the first move along that path. Not that I will be surprised if they start making these changes well before I think it sensible to do so.
elbows
Well-Known Member
I've found the video of Pollard and others talking for several hours so tomorrow I will watch the bits that the media turned into those stories, since I expect that as usual they've not fully explained the context.
As for the hospitals data I mentioned earlier, I'm tired so for today I'll just post my smoothed 7 day averages of hospital admissions/diagnoses in the regions of England. Its not surprising that the North East had the largest drop since they were in the worst situation and also saw the biggest drop in people testing positive (although Id need to check quite how much larger that was than other regions).
As for the hospitals data I mentioned earlier, I'm tired so for today I'll just post my smoothed 7 day averages of hospital admissions/diagnoses in the regions of England. Its not surprising that the North East had the largest drop since they were in the worst situation and also saw the biggest drop in people testing positive (although Id need to check quite how much larger that was than other regions).
Spandex
A crazy bulbous punchbag of sound
After the alarming rise in cases in early July, peaking on July 15th with 60,681 positive tests (by specimen date), and the equally rapid drop over the next week, we've now spent the last two weeks bouncing along with new cases ranging between 20,103 and 31,588 per day. It might be going up a bit, it might not - we'll only see that in retrospect.
Deaths are at a 7-day average of 80-something (exact figure depending on which stats you look at). I guess this'll come down a bit as we get further from that peak and then stabilise at bit more in line with the recent case numbers.
Hospital admissions have come down a bit and I guess they'll now hold steady-ish too as long as case numbers remain fairly constant.
I have no idea where this is going. Cases might trend up, or hold steady, or trend down. The end of school holidays or the arrival of colder autumn weather might see cases take off again. Further vaccinations might see cases go down. We're in uncharted territory. And that's without the risk of new variants.
Going out there's a complete mix of reactions depending where you are and what you're doing and who you're with. There's people still going out in full PPE (there's one older lady I see near me who's been dressed in what looks like a home made NBC suit everytime I've seen her since last March), there's people who pay no heed to any precautions at all. Some places I've been I'm the only person wearing a mask, others are 100% fully masked. Some places still require loads of safety measures, some barely pay lip service to it.
The vaccine programme has been an amazing success, but we seem to be in a kind of nowhere land at the moment where it's okay in comparison to last spring or late last year/earlier this year, but bad compared to the old normal.
The government's view seems to be: we've given you vaccines, now get on with life and get used to this new normal. They've obviously decided hospitals won't collapse under the weight of numbers and they won't be bothered by CRISIS! headlines in the news, but I can't help feeling the current situation is all a bit:
Deaths are at a 7-day average of 80-something (exact figure depending on which stats you look at). I guess this'll come down a bit as we get further from that peak and then stabilise at bit more in line with the recent case numbers.
Hospital admissions have come down a bit and I guess they'll now hold steady-ish too as long as case numbers remain fairly constant.
I have no idea where this is going. Cases might trend up, or hold steady, or trend down. The end of school holidays or the arrival of colder autumn weather might see cases take off again. Further vaccinations might see cases go down. We're in uncharted territory. And that's without the risk of new variants.
Going out there's a complete mix of reactions depending where you are and what you're doing and who you're with. There's people still going out in full PPE (there's one older lady I see near me who's been dressed in what looks like a home made NBC suit everytime I've seen her since last March), there's people who pay no heed to any precautions at all. Some places I've been I'm the only person wearing a mask, others are 100% fully masked. Some places still require loads of safety measures, some barely pay lip service to it.
The vaccine programme has been an amazing success, but we seem to be in a kind of nowhere land at the moment where it's okay in comparison to last spring or late last year/earlier this year, but bad compared to the old normal.
The government's view seems to be: we've given you vaccines, now get on with life and get used to this new normal. They've obviously decided hospitals won't collapse under the weight of numbers and they won't be bothered by CRISIS! headlines in the news, but I can't help feeling the current situation is all a bit:
wemakeyousoundb
hopefully not gimboid
I suspect they can live with higher than that. The phrase 20,000 in a bad flu year has been used repeatedly.
wemakeyousoundb
hopefully not gimboid
yes, this probably counts as winning in the orange baboon meaning of the word
cupid_stunt
Merry fecking Christmas.
They would be very comfortable with 80 deaths a week, trouble is it's around that per day ATM, getting on for 30,000 a year.
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